In this novel in verse, eleven-year-old Celi Rivera, of “Black-Puerto Rican-Mexican” heritage, is growing up outside Oakland, California, and wondering about the changes that puberty will bring. She’s particularly dreading her mother’s insistence she have a moon ceremony, an ancestral Mexica ritual, when her first period arrives. Celi feels uncomfortable at the idea of sharing such a private thing about herself with her mother’s “women’s circle.” Celi is also watching her best friend go through changes as well, realizing they are xochihuah, “neither/female nor male but both” and taking the name Marco. And when Celi’s first crush Iván starts to show an interest, but also insults Marco, Celi must decide who is more important to her. Can she stand up for what she believes, even as she tries to make the moon ceremony her own?
This is a beautiful story affirming of multiple cultural traditions and also of the multiple ways young people may change—and be affirmed by their communities—as they come into their adulthood. It is a coming-of-age story and one of cultural reclamation, of family bonds and finding one’s own path. Lovely and recommended.
